As part of the PHorestAll project, forest sampling activities were conducted at Rozkina gozdna učna pot (Forest Educational Trail), the Slovenian study site located in the Pohorje region.
The fieldwork was carried out by project partners from the Faculty of Health Sciences (FZV), the Slovenian Forestry Institute (GIS), and the National Laboratory of Health, Environment and Food (NLZOH).
Sampling activities included:
- installation of passive air samplers to monitor biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) during the six-week forest therapy programme;
- collection of conifer needle samples along the forest therapy trail for the analysis of forest-derived volatile compounds;
- soil sampling for microbiome, physical, and chemical analyses;
- collection of environmental and ecological metadata, including vegetation structure, tree density, canopy cover, and dominant plant species.
Sampling was conducted according to the standardized PHorestAll methodology applied across all study sites, ensuring the comparability of environmental data collected in different forest ecosystems.
The collected samples are currently being processed and analysed and will contribute to the project's ongoing research activities.